The FDA also only approved Bird Flu vaccine available from Hoffman La Roche. It was quite expensive and La Roche said that was due to the cost of ingredients.

It was later learned that less rich, smaller pharmaceutical companies produced the same exact vaccine at a fraction of the cost. Sometimes it pays to have friends in high places that can influence the FDA.

It just backs up the theory that the government works for drug companies.. they approve things that make us sick so we have to go buy more drugs to fix the new problems. That or they are working on population control by killing us off one group at a time.

Ooh ABB- don't trust the FDA, especially when they ruled that U.S. citizens "don't have the right to know which food is genetically modified (GM)." That's right, you've already been eating that cloned corn, that GM-beef and GM-wheat. You just didn't know it. . .anything made by Monsanto is GM.

The FDA is supposed to be protecting us from the evils of pharmaceutical companies, GM-foods and toxins. . .but come on. . .they aren't!

Personally, in light of what we know about the way DNA is transferred in humans, I don't think GM foods pose a direct risk (i.e. can't incorporate into our genome). HOWEVER, when you look at DNA transfer in non-human species, (i.e. the flatworm C. elegans) wherein 'eaten' DNA is incorporated into the host genome, and plant uptake of plasmid DNA, you see that GM foods can have a real, indirect effect on humans and our environment.

Like I said, the decision has already been made to allow GM foods (though I know I didn't vote on anything) even though the GM species over run natural crops (remember the case in Canada after NAFTA where drought resistant corn was planted in one field and then 'accidentally' spread to a neighboring farmer and the neighboring farmer had to pay an ass load of money to harvest the "patented" crop?

My g/f has me going organic, non-horomone pumped, and whole foods. I'm supposed to start feeling better, not that I felt bad. I went out with a scientist once that said the actual soil is so contaminated across the world that organic isn't really saying much. How do ya' win? But, believe the FDA blindly - no way.

Asa biologist, I'm not real comfortable with FDA recommendations, genetically modified food products, food additives, growth enhancers, etc., but cloned food doesn't bother me at all. Most of the fruits you buy are from cloned trees. Genetically, the animals are identical to the ones they are cloned from. I'd be much more worried about the products they feed these animals like growth enhancers and other food suppliments. That's why I produce all natural, pasture fed organic poultry on my farm. If you knew what was in the chicken and turkey you buy in the store you wouldn't eat it.

Last week while sitting in the gym locker room I listened to a conversation .. eavesdropped .. this woman stated she only frut she buys buys at the local store is bananas and tries to buy organic apples anytime she is near a natural food store .. as if the organic apples are not grown in the same ground(soil) that the bananas were .. and that the air is 100% pure where these organic apples were grown ..Think she'd be elated for cloned milk?

This is just a recipe for disaster. While cloned beef, pork, etc. might be safe to eat, the lack of genetic variation could render the livestock vulnerable to plague conditions that traditional breeding programs are resistant to. Just one new germ could wipe out huge numbers of cloned cattle, pigs, etc., where that germ would have trouble gaining a foothold in genetically diverse herds.

A good analogy could be the Irish Potato Famine of the mid-1800s, where lack of genetic diversity left the crops particularly vulnerable to potato blight.

Oh yeah, now I feel better-the gubment has said that shit's safe for me. And although it's a different branch, it's the same gubment that won't endorse the use of human freakin' STEM CELLS to cure human disease.

Although I'm not foolish enough to believe that everything from the Big Monopoly Health Food Store is as advertised, at least I am a little more secure as I spend triple the amount that I used to on food by shopping there. At any rate, I can hope I'm not pumping hormones and antibiotics into my teenagers.

I'm much angrier that we humans are ruining genetic diversity of plants and animals. Cloning = copying so I'm pretty sure its as safe as eating the original.But I don't think its going to be an FDA issue. I think we need to get our environmentalist selves out before lack of genetic diversity kills us all (see: Irish potato famine)

Hey, ABB, I'm here on the other side of the state to tell you that I'm starting a Square Foot Gardening (Mel Bartholemew) garden this year. You might want to read about it on the web and/or buy one of his books.

I already get the vast majority of the meat my family consumes from hunting (Elwood and I figured up the cost, and figuring the cost of rifles and shotguns on a 20 year basis it comes to about 80 cents a pound, including license, gas, supplies for storage, and bullets).

The spiel is that with SFG, a family of four needs only 16 4x4 foot beds for all your seasonal veggie needs including greens, fresh, and preserved. If that's the case, by next year I'll be saving a mega ton of money, plus eating healthier, more genetically diverse veggies.